The Sweet Taste of Poison
by startraveller776
Summary: It starts with a look, and soon Robin, a Harvard fourth year undergrad, finds himself in a clandestine affair with his friend's estranged, widowed stepmother. The relationship, however, is not the only scandal in his life, for Robin is more than what he seems. (Modern AU)
1. Part One

**A/N:** This is a repost of an old story. It was written as a gift for descaliers for a holiday exchange. The song quoted is "Take Me To Church" by Hozier. The story is three parts and a coda. _**Please heed the rating for this fic!**_

* * *

**PART ONE**

* * *

_My church offers no absolutes_.  
_She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom."_  
_The only heaven I'll be sent to_  
_is when I'm alone with you._

_I was born sick,_  
_but I love it._  
_Command me to be well._

* * *

It starts with a look.

A glance across the room full of modern aristocrats brandishing champagne flutes and pretention in a polite clash of wits. She wears a fitted black floor-length gown, simple except for the open back dipping down, down, down. When she catches him ogling, her crimson-lacquered mouth curves into a smirk and steals the breath from his chest.

"Who is that?" Robin asks his companion, though he tries to keep the awe from his voice.

"Who?" David follows his gaze to the woman in question. "Oh, her. That's Regina Mills—Leopold Blanchard's widow."

Robin frowns. Where has he heard the name Leopold Blanchard before? "Mary Margaret's father," he says when he recalls. "That's her stepmother?" She's too young, certainly. Though, at the same time, not young _enough_.

"Estranged stepmother," David corrects. "She's got an iron fist on Mary Margaret's trust."

Robin nods, eyes going to her again. She's laughing now at some unheard joke, and he unconsciously wets his lip. "She's—"

"A viper," David finishes for him. "I avoid her as much as possible, but she does a lot of business with Albert."

Albert Spencer, David's father, though he never calls him by that familial endearment. He's adopted his mother's maiden name in a fruitless rebellion against the man who holds David's livelihood in the palm of his hand. Robin well understands the desire to break free of patriarchal shackles, though he's done a better job of escaping.

There's small talk and introductions (not with her, not yet) and fielding questions about school and future plans. Robin answers with polite humility in the posh British accent acquired during his Eton days. It's been years since the melodic dips and peaks of his true origins have hinted in his timbre. Not that they wouldn't be beguiled by that accent as well, but he would be relegated to "quaint" rather than a product of the old world gentility they worship so ardently. Throughout the often inane chatter, he's very aware of her in his periphery. Never near the circles he weaves through, though he feels the cumbrous press of her presence all the same.

Finally, _finally_ when the evening begins to wane, when conversations grow louder, less delicate, when others slip off to dark corners and pretend they are far more sophisticated than the plebeian masses as they engage in the same activities that occur behind closed doors at frat parties—this is when a whisper of her perfume reaches him in a ghostly caress. Light, but neither fruity nor flowery. Weighted with illicit things and Cimmerian promises.

He plucks a pair of full glasses from a passing tray and advances toward her with a confidence belied by his thrumming heart, his quickened breath. He has no business putting himself in her path; he has nothing to offer her other than callow adulation, but if he could just hear her voice, he'll be satisfied.

She sees him coming, brushes her hand over the arm of her companion and excuses herself, gaze fixed on him. The way her hips sway as she closes the short distance between them, the way she makes him the center of her singular attention exsiccates his tongue, constricts his throat. Her smile broadens as she takes the proffered champagne, fingers grazing briefly over his. She knows the affect she has on him—likely he isn't the first to be lost to her stunning beauty. (Likely he won't be the last.)

"You're David's friend," she says in a sonorous alto. She holds out a slender hand to shake.

"I am, indeed." He brings her knuckles to his lips and places a soft kiss there. "Robin Locksley at your service, milady." That was, perhaps, a tad over the top, but if she were privy to his thoughts, she'd know he's no gentleman.

She huffs a quiet laugh as she withdraws her hand. "Well, aren't you a charming young man?"

The term "young man" grates on him. He doesn't want to be dismissed out of hand merely because of his age—not by her, at any rate—but then her dark eyes make a languorous tour from his face down to his smartly polished Oxfords and back. He grins. No, not dismissed. Not yet.

"Are you at Harvard as well, then?" she asks.

He considers fabricating knowing David through other means than university. Or saying that he's a graduate student rather than a fourth year undergrad—anything to make him appear older than he is, worthy of her interest. He discards the notion, however. He has the feeling she would ferret out the lie as soon as it crossed his lips. "I am," he answers truthfully. "I'm studying the history of art and architecture."

She raises a brow. "Culture over business," she says. "An unusual choice among this crowd."

"It is," he agrees, though she has no idea. He braves a step closer to her and is pleased when she doesn't retreat. "I prefer to follow my passions."

"Do you?" She tilts her head in amusement at his dilettante attempt at a subtle come on, but she doesn't discourage him. "You're a connoisseur, I take it?"

He nods. "Very much so."

She looks him over again, heat trailing in the wake of her measuring gaze. "I have a few pieces in my private collection that you might find interesting," she says. "You should stop by sometime and take a look. I'm free tomorrow afternoon."

As she begins to walk away, he catches her arm—just a touch of fingertips against exposed skin. "I'm afraid I don't know where you live."

Her smile turns rapacious. "You're not going to let that stop you, are you?" And then she's gone.

David finds him at the end of the soirée, asks him what Mary Margaret's wicked stepmother wanted. "Art" is the only answer Robin gives him.

* * *

She lives in Chestnut Hill. With the sparse weekend traffic, it only takes him twenty minutes to arrive in his Austin Healey. He inherited the car from his granddad and restored it himself. But he's content to let the bluebloods believe Daddy special ordered the vehicle for a birthday like theirs had. He never lies about who he is—lying about his past is an entirely different thing—but he doesn't always correct their misconceptions. Perception is such an easy thing to manipulate.

He doesn't doubt that she'll see through him, though—that she already has.

The address leads him to a tall, wrought-iron fence. He presses a buzzer, gives his name to the voice coming through the speaker, and the gates part for him. Beyond is a graveled avenue, hedged by rows of elm trees. It's a minute or two before the path opens to a circular driveway in front of a sprawling mansion. He parks to the side, rubbing his damp palms on his thighs before climbing out of the car and making his way up the steps.

The viscid swell of anticipation stirs in his stomach as he rings the doorbell. She answers rather than the help, and she's breathtaking in the simple shift dress and impish grin she wears. Lips still blood red.

"So, you found me," she says.

"As you said," he replies, "I wasn't going to let not having your address stop me."

Her grin stretches wider, baring straight white teeth, and she is dazzling. He passes close by her as she steps aside to allow him entry. He knows he's being too bold, too presumptuous, but he wants—_needs_ to be near her. She is a goddess, though not the pure and chaste kind from Judeo-Christian traditions. No, she hails from Greek mythology, a combination of Aphrodite and Athena and Hecate.

"Would you care for some lunch?" she asks, walking ahead of him and giving him the most pleasant view. She glances over her shoulder, smirking as if she knows his thoughts. "Or did you want to skip straight to the tour?"

He bites his lip as he considers his options. "Perhaps the tour and then lunch after?" He's quite fond of the way her gaze travels over him at the barest insinuation of something salacious behind their banter.

"We'll do the tour," she says, "and then we'll see."

He smiles, understanding the implications. Perform well and be rewarded. Oh, these are deadly waters he's treading, and they are precisely where he wants to be.

She takes him from room to room in her gargantuan home, presenting every bit of art hanging from the walls. Some of the pieces are pedestrian, purchased from local artists for decorative purposes rather than investment. But she was right about having a few paintings of value. She seems to favor the Post-Impressionist era with Cézanne and Picasso and Kandinsky. Robin asks to snap a few photos, and she gives him an indifferent wave of her hand. As they chat about color and composition, he forgets that he's barely twenty-three, that she's at least a decade older, if not more—though he'll never ask. He likes this, how mature, how cultivated he feels in her presence.

She leads him upstairs, explaining that her most cherished piece is displayed up there. He does his best to listen, to not be distracted by where the concave of her waist meets the convex of her hips. He wants to explore her symmetry with brush and paint against canvas (fingers and tongue against skin); he hasn't had that inclination since the year he spent in Paris between private school and university when he drunkenly fancied himself the next Renoir.

They are through a set of double-doors into a cavernous bedroom designed to be stark, yet refined with a sparse palette of white and black, accented with deep mahogany. His eyes are drawn to the only pop of color in the room, Picasso's _Les noces de Pierrette_ hanging over the fireplace mantel, and all lascivious thoughts of his hostess flee as Robin steps closer to examine his favorite painting from the artist's Blue Period. Such an exquisite disparity between what's meant to be a beautiful event—a wedding—and the dark hues, the somber expressions of the guests, of the bride and groom. A groom who seems to be wearing a mask to cover something unseemly about himself.

Robin knew this piece was in the hands of a collector and never believed he would be able to see it in person. He could spend hours studying every stroke, speculating over the nude figure in the foreground, the gentleman blowing a kiss to the celebrated couple while holding something (a dead flower?) behind his back. What an incredible opportunity she's given him. He pulls out his phone, takes as many hi-res photos as his SD card has memory for.

"Are you impressed?" she asks behind him, awakening him from his rapture.

He turns, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as he gives her the kind of frank appraisal he'd given the pinnacle of her collection. "Infinitely," he says. "Are you?"

She returns his smile with a canted brow. "The jury is still out."

He takes a step toward her. "Is it?" Another step and another as his heart drums in time to a rapidly surging crescendo. "I suppose I'll have to better plead my case, then."

"I'm all ears."

At once, he feels wholly unworthy of this moment. He knows how to charm his guileless female peers with his accent, with a dimpled grin, with the lost art of chivalry. But she's worldly, too cunning to fall for such simplistic ploys. He hasn't the first idea how to discern what a woman like her wants, what will turn her boneless in his arms, and he doesn't want to fumble his way through this encounter.

He has no other choice, though. Not if he wants to have her. (Oh, how he does.)

Donning a façade of absolute fearlessness, he traces the line of her jaw from her chin to her ear and farther, entwining his fingers in her silken locks. He tugs gently—more a request than a command for her to tip her head up, and she acquiesces. He doesn't kiss her, not yet, though he desperately wants to. Instead, he grips her waist with his free hand, pulls her flush against him, and already he doesn't know if he can bridle the sudden inferno radiating through his limbs.

When his lips finally touch hers, he tries to hold back, to keep the contact nothing more than a caress, but need overpowers him, demands that he slake the gnawing hunger she inspired in him from the first moment he laid eyes on her. When the last of his resolve crumbles beneath the tide of relentless want, he inhales her, crushes her into him, but there is no relief, no satisfaction. Only an ever increasing appetite for more.

She lets him taste her, lets his hand wander from her waist over the curve of her rear as she grips the front of his shirt. How does any man do it—enact a languid seduction when offered such a savory feast? He wants to be one with her already, her arching against him as he takes her to the most beautiful heaven that hell has to offer.

She breaks off the kiss, planting her hands against his shoulders. "Not bad for a boy," she says, more air than voice in her cavalier tone.

"I'm not a boy," he argues, despising the reminder of their age difference as he leans forward to enjoy the hollow of her neck.

"Yes, dear, a _boy_," she counters, though she tilts her head to allow him better access. "One who still has a lot to learn."

"Then teach me, Regina." He likes the shape of her name on his tongue.

And she does.

She shows him the virtue of restraint, the sensuality of fingertips grazing down an arm, warm breath fanning over bare skin. There's hunger in the way her nails scrape over his chest, but not frenzy. Each touch, each kiss is a languorous waltz at odds with his accelerating pulse.

He struggles with being the humble student—not only because every cell in his body is pulled taut like a drawn bowstring. But because he's never been docile, no matter the assumptions others make from his relatively unobtrusive demeanor. And he thinks that perhaps she knows this too, by the dare written in her hooded gaze.

He grins as he wraps his arms around her and lifts. She makes a surprised noise at the sudden movement, half-squeal, half-laugh, and he realizes that there might be a girl hidden inside of her who very much wants to be had by a boy like him. He drops her on the bed, thick down comforters billowing out around her. She is quite possibly the most striking creature he's ever had the privilege of laying hands on.

"I _do_ have a few tricks up my sleeve," he says, kneeling at her feet and pulling off her stilettos one at a time.

"Do you now?" She raises a brow in a challenge. "By all means, give me a demonstration."

"Gladly."

He won't be the most experienced lover she's had, and likely not the best either (though he's loath to make that concession—at least, this time). But he will be _memorable_.

This will surely be memorable for him.

And it is. Oh, god. It _is_.

The taste of her, the feel of her pressed up against him, the rasp in her voice when she tells him not to be smug after the first time he sends her to the heavens. ("I wouldn't dream of it," he replies, unable to keep a triumphant smile from his lips.) He didn't know it could be like _this_. This white-heat that devours him, remakes him, and leaves him as weak as a newborn babe in its wake as she falls again, taking him with her.

It's an eternity before he's able to prop himself up and take in the rose coloring her cheeks, her eyes glassy with pleasure. Her lipstick is gone, and she appears younger, more vulnerable without it. (He did that.) "The verdict?" He pants the question.

She tries not to smile. "I suppose you can have lunch."

He laughs and gives her an indelicate, open-mouthed kiss. "And another round after."

She shoves him onto his back. "Don't push your luck, boy."

He will, though. As far as it goes. (And he thinks it'll go far with her.)

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you so much for reading! XD If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	2. Part Two

**A/N: **Reminder that the rating is for adult themes, heavy sensuality, and mild language. XD

* * *

**PART TWO**

* * *

_Take me to church_  
_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_  
_I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife_  
_Offer me that deathless death_  
_Good God, let me give you my life_

* * *

Robin's phone vibrates during a particularly stodgy lecture on Mannerism in the High Renaissance period. The T.A. conducting the class is overly fond of his monotonous voice echoing in the hall, droning on and on in irrelevant tangents while the slide has been stuck on Hendrik Goltzius's _The Sleeping Danea Being Prepared to Receive Jupiter_for the last half hour.

Robin doesn't attempt to be discreet as he unlocks his phone.

_Drinks at 7. And you can talk me out of having everyone on the board executed for idiocy. _

He grins as he sends back a reply in the affirmative. The Boston Harbor Hotel tonight, then. That means skipping study group, but he'd rather be with her than spending three hours rehashing material he already knows. He'll always choose her, no matter the scheduling conflict.

It's been nearly six months since his odd arrangement with Regina began, and a week since their last encounter—the longest they ever go. (The longest he can stand.) His need is perpetually exigent, barely sated with each interlude, multiplying again within minutes of their parting. He's aware of the absurdity of his increasing infatuation, knows she's more of an addiction than a romantic partner, but he doesn't regret that he harbors the twisted hope that he's as much her favorite poison as she is his.

Because he's more alive than he's ever been.

Perhaps it's the thrill of the forbidden, the knowing glances they share across the room at the occasional society function, the way he'll pass her by, fingers grazing against hers. He's in her bed afterward, laughing over the imagined reactions of the gentry should they discover that the Black Widow has taken up with a Harvard undergrad. (She knows the name they whisper behind her back, knows the suspicions regarding her late husband's death.) David, of course, would be apoplectic that his mate is shagging the woman who is apparently making life so intolerable for his lady love. Robin is being terribly disloyal—_if_ he valued his friendship with David above this thing he shares with Regina. He doesn't. Not enough, anyway.

The subject of Mary Margaret has come up when he's alone with her—in the quiet moments following their liaisons where, at times, their post-coitus conversations turn to something deeper than her work or his classes.

"Why not give it to her and be done with it?" he asked when she mentioned that Mary Margaret was again demanding that Regina relinquish her role as executor of her trust.

Regina was silent for so long, he thought she might have fallen asleep. "She's the reason my fiancé died."

He stared at her as she rose from the bed and dressed without another word. He should have been unsettled by her vindictive reasoning, but vendettas and blood feuds were the food and drink of his childhood. He understands that forgiveness doesn't come as easily as the New Age gurus promise. He doesn't broach the subject again.

But it's not merely the excitement stirred by the taboo nature of their relationship that has him happily coming back for more. Neither is it solely the sex, and the sex is unparalleled—never dull or banal. It's not always slow, dark encounters worthy of romance novels. (Well, he assumes anyway; he's never actually read one.) Sometimes it's savage, ravenous with her bent over her desk in her home office while his fingers leave red marks on her hips. And sometimes there's silly banter and laughter as he chases her through her spacious mansion half-dressed. Because as much as he enjoys feeling older, _established_ in her presence, she likes that he makes her feel young.

He's painting again.

At first, tentative lines on canvas as he attempts to rouse skills long dormant. The strokes become broader, more sure as his confidence returns, as he remembers what he learned in Paris at the feet of a master. Mixing not only colors, but creating his own pigments to get the precise hue, the precise texture. He spends hours chasing after perfection, sometimes scrapping a piece altogether and starting anew when it doesn't meet his exacting standards.

He doesn't capture her likeness, though she is, in a strange way, his muse. She is in every swipe of color, every pigment blend. She's the shadow, the light—the drive that keeps him wielding his brush late into the night.

Of course, she complains about the smell of turpentine that he can't quite eradicate with showers and cologne. He tells her it's the price she pays for sleeping with an amateur artist. She never sees his work—never asks to—but then, he never sees hers, and he prefers this meticulous divide. In truth, he couldn't suffer her unfavorable judgment should she turn her nose up at his creations.

There's another text at the end of class, this one from David—a summons to hang out with the gang tonight. Beer, movies, and junk food. Robin begs off, uses the study group as an excuse, but chases his rejection with an invitation to get together later in the week. He's become well practiced with this precarious balance of his dichotomous life, though this unusual marriage between the reality he shows the world and the truths he hides away is not an entirely new thing.

His phone alerts him to a third message, and he frowns, worried that Regina might be canceling because of some fire or another she needs to put out at the office, but it isn't her.

_In town. When and where? –LJ_

Robin grins, glancing at his watch. He has two or three hours to kill before he's needed in Boston. He shoots off a reply with an address, and tosses his satchel in his car—though he'll leave his vehicle at his place in Cambridge. It's too conspicuous for this meeting. Public transportation will have to do.

It's twenty minutes with the pungent bouquet of humanity in its varying stages of hygiene before he's in Dorchester. The derelict neighborhood he traverses is hardly one where a semi-affluent Ivy-leaguer like himself should be caught in, but fortunately, he doesn't look the part in jeans and a t-shirt—and the unkempt beginnings of a beard. He only shaves when he has good reason, and school is no longer a sufficient motivator. (On more than one occasion David has accused him of having a touch of something he calls "senioritis.")

Robin arrives at an antediluvian apartment complex, unsightly with its 1970's Brutalist architecture. A handful of children kick a football—_a soccer ball_—back and forth in front the building, and one of them waves at him as he crosses the road, beckons him to join the impromptu match. Not this time, he answers, though he has before. Often, in fact. They tease him about his accent; he teaches them how the game is really played, and for an hour here and there he's taken back to his childhood, back to the family—the cousins, the nieces, the nephews—he left behind across an oceanic expanse.

But not today.

Granny Geraldine sits on the stoop in her sun-bleached lawn chair, knitting with gnarled, arthritic fingers. Her face splits into a wide grin when she sees him. She asks how the fancy Englishman has been doing since she last laid eyes on him. He tells her he's enjoying the balmy weather.

"So don't I!" she replies with a cackle and then sobers, leaning forward, lowering her gravelly voice. "There's a fellow inside looking for you. He's shiesty, if you ask me."

Robin laughs. He wonders what she would say about him if she knew he was a Harvard yuppie—or that he isn't actually English despite his private school training. Shiesty, indeed. He thanks her, steps inside and climbs the four flights to his floor.

A man of large girth stands outside his door, sucking deeply on a hand-rolled cigarette while leaning on the wall, and Robin warms at the familiar sight. Jean Pierre Delacroix is several years Robin's senior, and an old friend from Paris—the dearest one he's ever had.

"Those things will kill you," he teases as he closes the distance between them.

Jean blows out a puff of smoke and smiles. "One day, perhaps," he says with the barest slur in his inflections from his native tongue. "If gluttony doesn't take me first, no?" He pats his rotund belly, and Robin huffs a soft laugh, shaking his head. Before he can make a flippant reply, Jean has him in a bonecracking embrace and plants a _bise_ on each of his cheeks.

"It's been too long, mon vieil ami," he declares as he releases Robin. "Now, what have you to show me?"

Robin unlocks the door, shoulders against the wood to unstick it from the jamb. "You could have let yourself in, you know."

Jean shrugs, taking another drag on his cigarette. "Break into the legendary outlaw's home? Never."

Robin looks heavenward in blithe exasperation at the long-standing jest between them. Upon learning his name at their first meeting, Jean asked if Robin had any skill with a bow and arrow. When Robin admitted to, in fact, being rather practiced in archery—he had preferred that over the other sports offered at Eton—Jean took to calling him Robin Hood. In retaliation, Robin named him Little Jean, and a perennial friendship was born.

Inside, Robin flicks on a light switch and Jean grunts as he takes in the nearly empty studio apartment. It's really quite shabby with the original wood paneling, yellowed curtains, and olive green appliances, but the locale, the North-facing windows, the rent, the _anonymity_ make up for the homely décor. Jean puts out his fag in the sink, and Robin directs him to the easel at the center of the room. There are other paintings leaning against the walls Jean will want to look over as well, but he may as well begin with the pièce de résistance.

"You painted this?" Jean asks with no small amount of reverence as he examines it.

Robin smirks to cover the swell of pride in his chest. "Don't be so surprised."

"Not at all," Jean counters. "I knew you had the talent, but I thought you gave up the craft to pursue a more…conventional career, yes?"

Heat creeps over the nape of Robin's neck to his ears. "I suppose you could say that I've had a change of heart," he says. "Besides, I can have both the career and this."

Jean peers at him through a narrowed gaze as if trying to ferret out the cause of the turnaround. Fortunately, he doesn't pose the question written in his brow, but says instead, "This is true. May I?" He gestures to the magnifying glass lying on a table near the easel.

Robin nods for him to go on. He tries not to hold his breath as Jean scrutinizes the painting, centimeter by centimeter, in stretched silence. As the minutes tick by, Robin begins to doubt his work. The color, which had been perfect the day before, seems sallow now, his brush strokes too bold and indelicate when they should have been gentle, fluid.

"This is magnificent, Robin. Your attention to detail is without equal." Jean straightens and returns the loupe to table. He gives the other pieces a cursory glance. "You will make a name for yourself in no time."

Jean's candid praise siphons the tension from Robin's shoulders. "That is the hope," he says. "With a little help, that is."

"But of course!" Jean exclaims. "I would be offended if you asked another. We will be as thick as thieves."

Robin groans at the unfortunate pun, but it's unsurprising. These are Jean's specialty.

"Come," Jean says, clapping Robin's back with a beefy hand. "Let us go and celebrate our new venture."

"I would happily, but—," Robin gives him an apologetic smile, "—I have a prior engagement."

"Ah, I see." Jean raises a brow, expression turning shrewd. "A woman, no?"

"A lady." Robin offers no more than that as he ushers his friend out of the apartment, and Jean doesn't inquire further. "Tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow," Jean agrees.

* * *

She's sitting in the corner when Robin arrives, and in the warm, dusky lighting of the establishment, she's a vision of soft curves and flowing lines—deceptively edentulous, though he's intimately familiar with her bite. He wonders if there will ever come a time when the sight of her doesn't make his lungs and heart forget how to function. What fine witchcraft is this? And how can he make certain she will never stop using it on him?

He orders a drink—whiskey, neat—before joining her, and observes her unawares as he waits for the barkeep. Another man approaches her. The line he gives her is beyond Robin's hearing. He's not jealous of that harmless interaction; it's never been his nature, and there is the plain fact that she is not his. It's more than the ambiguity of their understanding. She's not a possession, some prize to polish and put on display in service to his or any man's vaulted ego.

He supposes, though, if she should ever give another the same smile she reserves only for him, it might awaken the green-eyed monster. But he can't imagine that coming to pass—not tonight, anyway. Not with how she purses her lips at the would-be suitor. Robin grins as she deftly shoots down whatever overture the hapless fellow made. No, she's no swooning damsel in need of rescue.

After the other man retreats, Robin takes the overstuffed leather chair next to hers. "You heartbreaker," he accuses in a lighthearted tone.

She smiles that extraordinary smile, the one born from unfettered pleasure, as she assesses him with a dark-eyed gaze. "You look like the cat that ate the canary."

"Funny," he says, returning her grin with one of his own, "I was going say that you look like a cat who's about to eat a canary."

Her laugh is dry, quiet. _Perfection_. "If the canary plays his cards right."

"The canary is becoming rather good at this game." He sips his whiskey, rolling it over his tongue. "But yes, I've had a banner day. I survived classes, was reunited with an old friend, and now, I'm to spend the evening in the company of a woman whose feet I'm not worthy to kiss—which, if I may be so bold, will be the highlight of my week."

Rose hints in the apples of her cheeks as she looks away. He likes when he has this effect on her—that he has any effect at all. She's beautifully exposed in these rare moments, and he's glad she allows him to witness the complicated creature beneath the veneer of cold, ball-busting businesswoman and high society widow.

"And you?" he says, nudging against her leg with his knee. "You've managed to avoid committing mass murder, I take it?"

She sighs heavily. "Barely."

His brows furrow in sympathy, though he can't imagine what it would be like to run an empire— especially one inherited from a late spouse. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She picks up her dirty martini and takes a slow pull. "Not particularly." She does. Now or later, she will. There is always a conflict churning inside of her—whether or not to open herself up to him, to let him experience _all_ of her facets—and she thinks she hides the internal struggle well, but he knows her better.

He suffers from the same battling desires.

"You're certain?" He plucks the olives from her drink, and slides one off the pick between his teeth before returning it to her glass.

"You know I hate it when you do that." Her expression turns dour, and the pinched look would easily wither a lesser man, but he's unmoved.

"No, you don't," he replies with an insolent smile.

She raises an eyebrow in repudiation. "Oh? And what makes you so sure?"

He chews the olive, savoring the sour brine and liquor. Extra vermouth, like always. "Because," he says, "against your better judgment, you're quite taken with me. Otherwise, you would have eviscerated me long ago."

She shakes her head, sighs with a muted laugh. "True."

"If it helps," he says, leaning into her, nose nearly touching her cheek, "the feeling is mutual."

"Yes," she agrees. "Your schoolboy crush."

He keeps from clenching his teeth, only just. This, he despises. Her compulsive need to remind them both of the years between them—to keep him (or her) at arm's length. Their age gap isn't important, though. Not to him. It never has been. And he's bothered that it seems to matter to her. As if he's somehow _less_ because he's not greying at the temples. As if he cannot offer her everything she wants or needs—even though he is the one she turns to for companionship. He keeps his brewing frustration in check, however; he's not ready to risk losing everything in an overdue confrontation. Not yet.

"I can hardly be blamed," he says in a playful tone as he sits back in his chair, "when presented with such a stunning specimen."

She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling again. She reaches toward him, fingertips gliding over the scanty stubble on his chin, his cheeks. He shaved his neck in order to be fashionably disheveled rather than slovenly.

"This is new," she says.

He makes no reply but waits in silence for the verdict that will shortly be coming. She's never been reticent to vocalize her opinion on anything.

"It suits you," she announces after exploring each bristly hair, and he grins.

"I'm glad to hear it." He doesn't need her approval, but he likes having it. He turns his head, kissing her willowy fingers before she withdraws her hand. She doesn't comment on the flimsy display as she usually does—public affection is against the unspoken rules of engagement—and emboldened, he admits that he's missed her.

She stares at him, crimson lips parting to form a sardonic rebuttal, but one never comes. Her mouth closes, her gaze falls to her drink, and then: "Me, too."

He's beset with the sudden need to know how much she's missed him, if she thinks of him daily, if she checks her phone more often than necessary, if she tallies the hours between each encounter. He doesn't give voice to any of these fervid, juvenile questions, however. The two words she uttered are confession enough. He's more to her than a vessel she uses to quench an occasional thirst. He _matters_—even if she regrets his relative youth. With enough time, he could overcome that as well.

These thoughts are tiptoeing dangerously close to a prosaic wish he cannot allow to take root. He's not naïve; he knows they aren't soul mates on the cusp of becoming one in heart and mind, in body. (Sometimes it _feels_ like it.)

He traces a line up the outside of her thigh, following the seam of her dress from the hem to just below her hip. He puts a different unasked question in his gaze—one that would be too clichéd if spoken out loud, but wants an answer all the same. She tips her head in a bare nod, sets down her glass, and leaves the safety of their corner. He pays her tab as well as his and finds her again inside the hotel, at the elevators.

A geriatric couple joins them on the lift, keeping him separated from Regina for the ride. She tosses salacious glances in his direction behind the pair, her tongue grazing across her bottom lip, and with effort, he keeps his expression pleasantly neutral. The white-haired grandmother has engaged him in a cordial discussion. How long will he be staying in Boston? Just for the night, he answers, swallowing back a smirk. Other inquiries follow. Where is he from? Has he been in the States long? He nearly chokes on his reply when, in his periphery, Regina slides her index finger deep between parted lips.

He's relieved when the stooped husband and wife get off on the next floor. The doors are barely closed before he has Regina trapped against the wall. "You," he murmurs with a voice rasping with acute want, "are very naughty."

She gives him an unapologetic smile. "Careful," she warns, fingers gliding down the buttons of his shirt, stopping at his belt. "There's a camera in here."

"I'm more than willing to give the poor, bored security guards a show," he murmurs as he presses into her.

Her eyelids flutter, breaths coming in hitched sighs. "Patience is a virtue."

"I'm not a virtuous man." Not for her. Not with the fevered air steeping between them. The moment becomes charged, thick as she seems to be on the threshold of relenting. He leans forward, down, and—

_Ding_.

She slips out from under his arm with a laugh that promises no good, tows him out of the elevator and down the hall by his belt loop. She doesn't let go as she pulls a keycard from somewhere on her person (he can guess where) and unlocks the door. Inside, he grasps her by the hips, yanks her into him—or attempts to, but she prevents him with a hand splayed against his chest.

She clucks her tongue, wags a finger at him. "Patience, eager boy."

The woman is ridiculous. It's been a week—seven dolorous days—and she's telling him to be _patient_? She's cruel, brutal. Unreasonable.

And she's leading him again by his belt toward the bed in the dark room. She shoves him back onto the mattress, and he thinks, perhaps—yes, he likes _this_ kind of brutality. He lets out a low, arid laugh as she turns on a lamp. Just one—enough to illuminate her in muted sunset tones, but leaving the rest of the suite in shadows. She's so beautiful as she languidly unzips her dress, letting it drop to the floor, so enticing that he wants to reach for her, gather her into his lap and kiss her until they suffocate on his hunger, on hers.

"The things you do to me, Regina Mills." Glorious things. Superlative things. Things he never wants to end.

He loves this.

He loves _her_.

But that, too, is against their tacit rules of engagement, and he smothers the ripple of tenderness and yearning pooling around his heart as he pulls her down against him, covers her mouth with his.

Hours later, as they face each other in bed in the moonlit room, his fingers winding through her showerdamp hair, she tells him about the board meeting (as he knew she would). She recounts the subversive tactics of the members, the race to buy up stocks to keep her status of majority shareholder.

"They'll never be loyal to me," she says. The defeat in her tone is uncharacteristic, _wrong_, and he's indignant on her behalf.

He caresses her cheek with his thumb. "I'll be glad to have a conversation with all of them." He means every word, though he's well aware how pointless his offer is. (Not so pointless if he hadn't cut ties with his father.)

"You're sweet," she replies with a wistful smile as she threads her fingers in his. "But that won't change anything."

He sighs, but doesn't argue. Instead, he considers how he might exact his own brand of vengeance against her enemies. She's right. Even what he has in mind won't change a thing, but it will ease his sense of helplessness; it'll give him a measure of vindication.

He draws her into him, gives her a kiss, soft with his assurance that however the rest of the world views her, _he_ is loyal.

She's not alone

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for taking a gander! Drop me a line and let me know what you thought! XD


	3. Part Three

**A/N:** This is the final part of the main story (and it's a bit of a rollercoaster ride). There's a coda following this that completes the work.

* * *

**PART THREE**

* * *

_No masters or kings_  
_when the ritual begins_  
_There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin_

_In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene_  
_Only then I am human_  
_Only then I am clean_

* * *

"Turn it off."

Disoriented, Robin peels one eye open and squints at the early morning light peeking through the curtained windows of their hotel suite. There's a hand on the back of his shoulder, shoving at him quite insistently.

"Wha—?" he begins, but then he hears it. His phone rattles against the nightstand, and he gropes for it with uncoordinated fingers. Blinking, he tries to decipher the unfamiliar number on the screen. After the device vibrates again, he decides to answer. Could be Jean. Or…someone. Robin isn't awake enough for a train of thought that goes anywhere, really.

"Hang on a moment." It feels as though his larynx is made of rocks.

Regina hushes him with a scowl before rolling over, taking all the blankets in retaliation for rousing her, and he snorts a laugh.

He thinks about telling the person on the other end of the line to sod off so he can jump on the bed until Regina takes a swipe at him. And he'll pin her down and… Well, that particular train of thought has no trouble arriving at its destination. Unfortunately, she's already lost to slumber again—rather atypically. He'd like to believe he'd done as fine a job wearing her out last night as she did him, but he thinks that this has more to do with the half of her life he has no part in. (He'd like to, though.)

He sighs, picking up his trousers and manages to pull them on with one hand. The bedroom door closes behind him with a soft click as he crosses the suite to settle on the sofa. With a sigh, he casts a glance through the glass at the lump on the bed, hoping this call will be brief. Already he wants to be back in there with her, arms wound around her supine form.

"If you're still there," he says into the phone, stifling a yawn, "I apologize for the wait."

There's no reply at first, and then a rush of words. "Robin? I hope it's you. Will gave me this number, but if I've dialed it wrong, I'm so sorry for the early phone call."

That voice. That _voice_. It wicks the air from his lungs, compresses his ribcage. "Marian?" He's not certain he speaks the stunned question aloud until she answers.

"Yes!" she exclaims, sounding relieved. "It's me. I know it's been a long time and so much has happened, but when I learned you were in Boston, or Cambridge, I just…" She trails off with a shaky laugh. "I'm so nervous, I'm rambling."

He tries to smile, but he's not quite over the shock of speaking with a ghost from his past. "You're here, then?"

She makes a noise of agreement. "I am. I have been for almost four years."

Four years? Four? She's been minutes from him this entire time? Ache, long repressed, floods the hollow chambers of his heart with countless what-should-have-beens. The next tide that follows is suffused with anger—outrage—at the powers which have kept them separated.

Marian is talking again and he's missed part of her question. "…together sometime?"

He rakes his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry, what?" he asks and sheepishly adds, "I'm afraid I'm still a bit gobsmacked."

She laughs again, and this time it's more like the unfettered melody he remembers. "You should have seen me when I heard you were at Harvard. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I kept bumping into walls. My roommates threatened to take me in for a psych eval." She sucks in an audible breath. "So, would you like to get together sometime and catch up?"

"Right now works for me," he answers without hesitation. He doesn't want to be apart from her for a minute longer.

"Give me a couple hours," she says with an obvious smile in her tone.

They agree on some hole-in-the-wall coffeehouse she favors, and after giving him directions, she rings off. He sinks back into the sofa, mouth stretching in a wide grin of incredulity. She's _here_. Marian. The love of his life which had been ripped from him nearly five years ago. Memories like crystalline water pour over him. The way she nudged him with her shoulder during their late night rooftop conversations about everything and nothing. The feel of her smooth palm against his calloused one. Her absolute faith in his ability to escape the generations of chains tying him to the family trade; her belief that he could—_would_—craft his own future. The abject reverence in her sable eyes as they consummated the purity of their unrivaled connection.

And he's mere hours from a reunion he never thought they'd have. His Marian.

His gaze meanders to the bedroom, and the excitement levitating within his chest smashes against his momentarily forgotten reality. Treason sinks like septic lead in his gut, though he doesn't know who it is that his conflicted feelings betray most. Regina? Marian? Himself? All three of them.

He has to go back in the room, has to see Regina's face and know if his reluctant revelation from the night before was true. He's quiet when he enters, careful not to wake her. Because he doesn't think he'll have the strength to keep his newly-made appointment should she look up at him with that genuine smile—_his_ smile. She appears so small, so fragile cocooned in the blanket, free of the cynicism that has flourished beneath the crushing weight of her difficult life. And yes, he loves her. Ardently.

But he loves Marian, too. He's loved her longer in memoriam.

He shakes his head, chides himself over his puffed-up sense of self-importance. He knows nothing of Marian's life in the intervening years, whether she's found another to take up residence in her affections or if she even has a desire to rekindle what was stolen from them (does he?). And Regina—she's never given any indication that she wants more than this tenuous arrangement he shares with her.

He's a fool over nothing. (That feels strangely like a lie.)

He dresses in silence, gathers his things, and leaves a hastily scrawled note for Regina. The ambiguity in his message with a promise to call later tastes acrid on his tongue, but he fears the truth will chase her away before he has an opportunity to sort through the unrest that Marian's surprise return has triggered.

* * *

Robin arrives at the coffeehouse early, jittery anticipation crackling under his skin. The place has a cozy décor, warm with mismatched plush furniture. The curtains are drawn against the bright morning light, inviting the patrons to linger, to ponder, to whisper secrets.

He orders a cappuccino—extra dry—and seats himself at a table near the back. His heart leaps at the jangle of bells hanging from the door, but it isn't her. After a few more false starts, he begins to question the wisdom of sipping a caffeinated beverage when he's already horribly keyed up. He studiously ignores any thoughts that drift in the direction of the hotel, to where a shard of his soul dwells.

The door jangles again, and it's _her_. She's as beautiful as he remembers. More so. Long chestnut locks frame her long face in soft waves. Her features have lost some of the roundness of youth, chiseled by time, but she still wears the aura of angelic innocence that once inspired him to be better than he was. He was undeserving of her then. (He's undeserving of her now.)

She scans the room, and he wants to sink deeper into the shadow, to stretch this moment of furtive admiration before their reunion jostles the house of cards he's carefully built these past few months. But he doesn't hide. Instead he stands, gives her an irresolute wave, and her face splits into a watery smile as she crosses the room to him.

She breathes his name as if it's the first time in years she's been able to fill her lungs with air. He pulls her into a tight embrace, tears pricking in his eyes. Nostalgia crashes over him as he inhales the long forgotten scent of her favorite perfume. She's _here_. Hail and whole.

He pulls back, wipes his thumb over her smooth cheek to capture the wetness there. "Marian," he murmurs, shaking his head to dislodge the disbelief still clinging to him.

"Look at you. You're all grown up." She brushes her fingertips across the coarse hair peppering his jaw. "It suits you."

He swallows back the inexplicable antipathy at hearing Regina's compliment from the night before falling from Marian's lips. "Thank you." He grins, ushering her toward the chair opposite his at the table. "Let me get you something to drink."

"Oh, they have the best mochaccinos here," she says, and he huffs a laugh. She always had a weakness for chocolate.

"A mochaccino it is, then."

He feels the press of her gaze follow him as he makes his way to the counter, but he doesn't look back. The stir of emotions her phone call inspired has become a battling tempest, and he needs a beat to quell the storm. He wants to believe this reunion is no more significant than the one he shared with Jean yesterday—simply a meeting between old friends too long parted. But it's not. This is more. Marian is more.

She glows with naked joy when he hands her a steaming mug and takes his seat. "I can't believe we're really here—after all these years."

"Me neither." Had he only _known_ that she's been practically under his nose this entire time. How different his life might have been. But that thought gives him pause. Because it doesn't awaken regret as he expects, but another emotion disturbingly close to relief. "You were shipped off to some boarding school in Switzerland, last I heard."

She bobs her head in agreement, taking a sip of her coffee. "Italy, actually." She sighs, hands curling around her mug. "I tried to find you after I graduated, but you disappeared. Just like you said you would one day. God, that accent—you sound so different." Her expression is cast with sudden wistfulness. "You're not my Irish boy anymore, are you?"

The murmured question makes his throat constrict with a filmy sadness. She's right. He isn't the teenager railing against the oppression of his family, the teenager who saw his salvation in her unblemished devotion to him. He can't say the words, though. He's not ready yet to admit to her or to himself that the past has become like sand slipping between his fingers—that maybe he no longer desires the future they were both deprived of.

He reaches across the small table, extracts one of her hands from her cup and gives it a gentle squeeze. "Tell me everything I've missed."

"I don't know where to begin." She takes a deep breath and launches into a recounting of her year in Italy, of applying to Northeastern University to spite her grandfather, to be closer to her sister. She shares silly anecdotes from school; she tells him about her sister's diagnosis of breast cancer, and the fear that her nephew would grow up without a mother. She talks about spending Spring Break in the homeland to pay her final respects to her granddad—and her chance meeting with Will Scarlet, a mutual childhood acquaintance. One of the rare few whom Robin still chats with on occasion.

"I think that's about it," she finishes, and then encourages him to take a turn filling in the gaps.

He isn't quite as open with her—he can't be—and sorrow tugs in the corners of his mouth. He used to trust her implicitly; he laid himself bare for her, both the darkness and the light. But as he listened with rapt interest to what's become of her these past few years, he realized how disparate their lives are now. She is the same emblem of incorruptibility, magnified a hundredfold by time and maturity. He doesn't doubt that she would still accept him with open arms if he revealed the unsightly truths about himself. But her faith in him—in his ability to overcome and be _better_, be more like her—that would be his condemnation.

Because he doesn't want to be saved. He's not lost. The effigy she would make of him is as oppressive as the profligate his father would have him become.

So, he edits his history to keep her at a harmless distance—the same span with which he holds himself apart from friends like David Nolan and Mary Margaret Blanchard. His tales reflect his tamer exploits in Paris, the rather dull grind of studying at a prestigious school. He talks of recently sending off an application for an internship at the Louvre, and Marian gushes with pride that he's completely disentangled himself from his family. Robin blows out a thready breath. The road he's chosen isn't too far afield from his father's original intentions. At least, not far enough to warrant the approval shining in her eyes.

Her face twists in endearing chagrin when her phone beeps. "And reality knocks." At Robin's confusion, she clarifies, "Work—well, kind of. I volunteer for a shift at the animal shelter on Saturdays. But maybe we can get together tomorrow?"

There is a dense hope in the invitation, and he drops his head, shoulders sagging. She is everything he's supposed to want—everything safe and easy and good. For all the turmoil he suffered from the moment he heard her voice on the line, a strange sort of serenity settles over him. He knows now what it is he needs.

"I can't," he says, glancing up at her wearing a somber expression.

Her eager smile turns sad as she understands the meaning behind his refusal. "There's someone else."

"Yes." Although he may not yet have Regina's heart, she most assuredly has his.

"Ah." Marian's cheeks tinge with pink. "She's a lucky girl."

He lets out a rueful laugh. "I wouldn't exactly say that."

"I would." Her dark gaze whispers the disappointment she doesn't vocalize, and he regrets inadvertently hurting her. "I think that's my cue," she says, rising from her seat. "Take care, and—" she pauses as if she isn't sure she wants to say the rest, "—don't be a stranger, okay?"

He stands and gives her another bone-jarring hug. "Of course not," he murmurs into her hair. "We've got each other's numbers."

"Goodbye, Robin."

He watches her exit, the boy in him grieving what might have been had his father and her grandfather not been mortal enemies.

But then, maybe things work out the way they're supposed to.

He pulls out his phone and sends a text:

_Fancy a visit to the MFA with me? _

It's a minute before there's a reply.

_What, you didn't get enough last night? Missing me already? _

He grins.

Always.

* * *

Robin is becoming desperate. As the end of term—the end of university—approaches, Regina grows distant. She calls less often, replies to only a fraction of his texts, and he's afraid. He wants to tell her that what they share isn't a passing whim for him. He wants to believe it isn't for her, either. But she keeps their increasingly infrequent encounters brief, only long enough to sate her carnal appetites as if she resents that she needs him.

Having her and yet not is killing him in increments with the slow poison of despair.

He's angry, frustrated, but short of earning himself a restraining order, he's helpless to change the bleak trajectory of their deteriorating relationship—not until he can make her _listen_. He fills the consuming void, or attempts to, with his studies, with painting, with his new partnership with Jean. His latest pieces are filled with the same dusky anxiety and misery that has become a familiar barbed vine winding through his ribcage. Fortunately, Jean is unbothered by the change in theme, though he casts Robin an occasional glance suffused with concern that he never forms into words.

At the peak of Robin's torment, his father summons him. It's not a request, but a command. _Of course_.

Robin accepts the messengered plane ticket to New York with resignation. (At least it's not Dublin.) He'll go. If he doesn't, his father will come to him, and it won't be a quiet visit.

Surprisingly (suspiciously) the meeting takes place in a swanky uptown restaurant. While Robin is glad for the kind of sophisticated public encounter that will likely keep his father's coarser attributes under leash, he wonders what the older man has hidden up his sleeve. They haven't spoken since Robin's precipitate move to France, and it's unlikely that reconciliation is on the agenda—for either party.

Robin murmurs his father's name to the hostess, and she leads him through a labyrinth of tables to a booth in the back. Declan Cavanaugh relaxes back into the plush leather bench as he frowns at the wine list. Aside from a nose slightly crooked from youthful brawls, he is the image that Robin will see in the mirror in twenty or so years. Neatly coiffed thick hair, once dark blond but now ashen with silver and white; dimples indenting his clean shaven cheeks, made more pronounced with the purse of his lips; the cut of his jaw, the clear blue of his eyes, the soft rasp in his voice—_everything_is the same. The only trait Robin apparently inherited from his late mother was her humanity.

He sucks in a deep breath as he takes a seat on the other side of the booth. "Is Will at least still alive?" he asks with a touch of venom.

Declan raises a brow and snorts. "Good evening to you too, son." His lilt is bare, almost seamlessly imperceptible by virtue of spending most of his adolescence in the States.

"I'm serious," Robin plows forward, unwilling to pretend at civility. "Tell me that you didn't have my friend roughed up just so you could find me."

"I'm overwhelmed by your unwavering faith in me." Declan levels him with a flat stare. "You're hiding in plain sight. I didn't need your whereabouts beaten out of Will Scarlet."

"Now that you put it that way, I feel so much better," Robin says, his tone saturated with sarcasm. "What do you want?"

"You'd do well not to bait me, lad. If you think this hoity-toity establishment will stop me from reminding you who it was that gave you life, you've got another thing coming." Satisfied that Robin understood the flagrant threat, Declan picks up the menu. "I hear the braised beef is really something."

Robin orders the sea bass out of spite. And a whiskey, neat—to steel himself for the impending dispute. He's well into his second glass of the stuff before the food arrives, grudgingly answering his father's polite inquiries into his life, at least the bits he's willing to share (nothing beyond school). Robin wishes the man would skip over these fictitious pleasantries already so they can have it out and be done with it.

"We've always had Boston," Declan says a few minutes into their meal, "and the Italians have always had New York."

Robin leans back in the booth and glares at his empty tumbler. He thinks of telling the waiter to give him the whole damn bottle next time he comes around; he has an inkling of the direction this conversation is about to take. "And the Russians."

"Interlopers, the lot of them." Declan waves a hand in dismissal. "Since the beginning it's been us and the Italians, and now that Sergio Mantovani's had the good graces to die, there's been a paradigm shift. His men are falling all over themselves to become the next Dom."

Sergio Mantovani. Marian's grandfather. Likely his death was the reason she felt safe renewing her association with Robin. He'd been too wrapped up in sorting out his feelings to make that connection—or the ensuing realization that running back into her arms meant a reenactment of their tragic modern-day Romeo-and-Juliet-esque romance. But as he sits across from his estranged father, Robin understands that the old Dom's demise has even worse implications for him.

"I fail to see what any of this has to do with me," he lies, pointing at his glass when the waiter finally makes an appearance.

"All that fancy learning your mother demanded you have," Declan replies with a smirk, "and you're still behaving like the idiot boy."

Robin clenches his teeth, heat creeping up his neck. "Better the idiot boy than one of your lackeys."

"Point your nose up all you want, but at least they understand the meaning of loyalty. It's about time my son learned the same lesson." Declan's features tighten into the jagged iron that has the knees of grown men buckling as they beg for their lives. "The family here needs someone to take them by a firm hand and guide them through this golden opportunity. Someone who has the smarts to know when to charm and when to wield a pipe."

"And you think that someone is me?" Robin asks with a dubious laugh. "What, did you think you could wine and dine me, and I'd suddenly want to jump into the family business? Put Killian in charge."

"Killian is running Boston like a well-oiled machine. He's exactly where I want him." Declan leans forward, his posture menacing. "You can change your accent, and you can change your name, but that is _Cavanaugh_ blood in your veins, lad. And I didn't build this empire to have my son spitting on it."

Robin waits until the server sets down his refreshed tumbler and takes a long pull of the scorching liquid before formulating an appropriate response. "What are you going to do if I say no, _Da_?" he grinds out, anger fracturing at edge of his baritone. "Point a gun to my head and force me to take over New York? If so, then pull the trigger. I'd rather die than do your bidding."

Declan's face turns a dangerous shade of crimson but his heated reply is lost on Robin. Because he hears something—a husky, familiar laughter that doesn't belong in this city, let alone this restaurant. He swivels in his seat, searching for the source, praying that the alcohol has finally befuddled him to the point of hallucination.

But it _is_ her. The woman at the center of his tortured heart sits a few tables away, curling a lock of raven hair behind her ear as she tilts her head and grins at the man opposite her. She seems happy, as carefree as she'd once been with Robin, and he stands without thought, pulls out his wallet and drops a pair of crisp hundred dollar bills next to his unfinished meal. When Declan protests, Robin bites out, "We're finished—_for good_," as he sidesteps out of the booth.

Fury and anguish make fast friends beneath his skin as he crosses the room toward the pair. Neither Regina nor her date (the word makes bile churn Robin's stomach) notice his presence until he's next to the table, casting a pale shadow over their wine glasses.

"Robin!" Regina's dark eyes widen with shock. She is as breathtaking as ever in that lavender cocktail dress, and his nails dig into his palms.

He screws his mouth up in a thin smile. "Hello, Regina. Fancy meeting you here." The excessive politeness masks his outrage, but the emotion laps violently at the surface, demanding to be let loose. Because _how dare she_. How dare she give _his_ smile to another man. Speaking of which: "Who's your companion?"

She stutters through a brief introduction, clearly unsettled by this chance encounter. (Good.) The other fellow's name is Graham, and Robin guesses that he's closer in age to Regina with the lines drawn in the corner of his eyes and the pinch of grey sprinkled at his temples. Robin is sick with the idea that she might prefer him because of it.

"Pleasure to meet you, mate." Robin holds his hand out and uses every ounce of self-control not to crush Graham's as they shake.

"Any friend of Regina's," Graham returns with strained tact in a recognizable sing-song timbre. Another Irishman. Is that what she wants? Robin could easily give her that. He'll put on a damn leprechaun costume and chase rainbows if that'll please her.

But he can't make himself older, and that bitter truth adds fuel to the inferno blazing through him.

"Indeed," he says, his falsely calm demeanor crumbling into fine dust. A rational voice warns him not to let fly the string of words he's now shaping with his tongue, but there's enough liquor in his system that he really couldn't be arsed to listen to reason. "So, tell me, Graham, are you sleeping with her, too?"

"Robin!" Regina exclaims as she starts to rise from her chair, but he throws up a finger to stop her.

His gaze, however, remains fixed on Graham. "I'm merely curious about my competition."

Graham smirks as he gives Robin a derisive once over. "I'd hardly call a boy competition, _mate_."

The restaurant erupts in chaos as Robin snatches the other man by his tie and punches him square in the nose. Regina is yelling; his father is laughing, proudly telling anyone who'll listen where Robin gets his fire from. The waiter latches onto his arm, pulls him back from the table, and Robin goes willingly. He's embarrassed that he caved to the club-swinging Neanderthal inside of him—even if he desperately wants to keep pummeling the smug bastard who had mocked him.

"I'm afraid you'll have to leave, sir," the waiter explains as he ushers Robin toward the door.

Robin is tempted to invite Graham to join him outside to finish their conversation, but the insolent offer withers in his throat under the weight of Regina's scornful glower. He apologizes instead to the waiter, to the patrons he passes before he exits into the muggy Spring evening. It occurs to him that he may have shattered the glass-blown hope he held of persuading Regina that he's not some meathead frat boy.

"Tell me again how you're nothing like me." Declan steps up next to Robin, raising a brow. "That was all Cavanaugh in there, lad. Let me know when you're ready to accept who you are." He retreats down the block with a trio of minions following in his wake.

Robin sneers in disgust. For _years_ he worked to eradicate every vestige of similarity he shared with his father, and he throws that nearly insurmountable effort away in an asinine fit of jealousy? And yet, he's still seething. At Declan. At Regina and Graham. At himself.

He hears the determined staccato of heels against pavement, catches a diaphanous waft of the perfume that permeates his dreams, and he tips his head back, closing his eyes with a groan.

"What the hell was that display about?" Regina jerks his arm, forces him to look at her. She's almost at eye level in her stilettos, and she's positively vibrating with ire.

"I'm sorry I ruined your night out. He seems like such a _brilliant_ fellow," Robin snaps back at her, shrugging out of her grasp. He refuses to let her see how thoroughly she's destroying him. "I'm sure the evening is still salvageable, though. Maybe a little game of nurse and patient—if he goes in for that sort of thing, that is."

She stares at him, lips parting as she shakes her head. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when an adolescent acts like an adolescent."

His blood pounds in his ears as he holds her gaze, his sore hand flexing into a tight ball. Oh, how he hates her in this moment. "And I shouldn't be surprised when the Black Widow screws over her pets. Love them and leave them in pieces. Isn't that how it works?"

She slaps him hard across the face.

He yanks her into him and kisses her harder.

Because despite his searing contempt for her refusal to see past the number of birthdays he's had, despite the open wound she's sliced in his heart, he still wants her, _needs_ her—whatever dregs she's willing to offer him. And she presses herself into him, hungrily invading his mouth with her tongue as if he's the oasis she's long been denied. His fingers fist in the taut fabric of her dress, in her smooth hair, and he inhales her, tastes her, _devours_ her.

He is vaguely aware of being pushed into the back of a cab and being dragged out of it again when it arrives at the front of the Plaza. It's almost a race to the lifts, and then he has her pressed up against the wall of her suite, hiking up the skirt of her gown as she folds her legs around his hips.

He wants to ruin her, to give her an experience that cannot be imitated. The consolation that he is here with her rather than Graham is too small. It's not enough.

He snakes an arm beneath her thighs, wraps the other around her waist as he steps back and fumbles his way toward the bedroom. She claws at his shirt buttons, his belt buckle, when he sets her on the bed, but he captures her hands, pulls them up to cradle his face as he covers her mouth in a languid kiss. This is not just sex, not tonight.

Tonight he's confessing his rooted devotion.

Any man can make her cry out in ecstasy. Only he can love her with this fathomless depth.

Each caress. _I love you_. Each kiss. _I love you_. Each gasp and sigh. _I love you_. He holds her gaze as he joins her, as he communes with her body and soul.

_I love you. I love you. I love you_.

There is no paradise without her. No joy. No future.

Afterward, he pulls her into him until her head is pillowed on his chest. He's grateful that she doesn't broach the silence. Words will hang between them soon enough, and he's afraid he won't like the flavor of them.

* * *

Regina is standing at the window when he wakes, terry-cloth robe clutched closed with one hand at her neck, her other arm wound across her waist. The sunrise swaths her in ethereal light and she looks inhumanly striking, like a creature out of fairy tale.

He slips out of bed and embraces her from behind. She leans against him, exhaling as he places a kiss on the top of her head. He wants this—every day. He wants to open his eyes each morning and see her next to him. He wants to fall asleep with her body curled into his. He wants a life with her.

She sighs again and steps out of his arms. "Robin, we have to stop this."

"Stop what?" His heart crawls into his throat, making it difficult to keep his tone light. "Having public altercations? I'll be happy to apologize to your friend and make nice." Unless, of course, Graham does have romantic intentions toward Regina. In which case, Robin will be more than glad to pick up where they left off last night—maturity be damned.

She faces him, raising a hand to caress his jaw. The expression she wears stabs him in the chest. "You know that's not what I mean."

"I love you." Giving voice to the acute emotion which has plagued him for months is both liberating and gut-wrenching. He's losing her—perhaps even lost her already—but he can't bring himself to admit defeat, not without one last appeal. "I love you, Regina Mills," he repeats, capturing her hand and pressing a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist.

Fear darkens her eyes, pinches her brows. She withdraws farther from him. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Why?" he asks, advancing on her. "Why is it ridiculous that I love you? Is it my age? I assure you that I am just as capable of the same depth of feeling as a man ten or twenty years older!" He grabs her arms, and it takes conscious effort not to shake her. "Why do you keep running from this thing between us? You feel it, don't you? We _belong_, Regina. And I don't care that I'm younger or that you're older. I don't care about some stupid unspoken rule about age differences. I love _you_."

"Stop, stop, stop!" She jerks free of his grasp as a single tear glides down her cheek. "You'll resent me for stealing your youth."

He blinks, frowning. That is quite possibly the most ludicrous thing he's ever heard. "_That's_ what's holding you back? I've already sowed my wild oats. I know who I am and what I want, and I want you."

"You can't." She seems so small, so broken, and he wants to hold her; he wants to heal her. "You don't know me, what I am. I'm no good, Robin."

"I'm no saint, either," he says, ready to tell her every black secret if it means she'll let him in.

"I killed him," she whispers, chin dropping to her chest as tears course down her face in a steady stream. "I killed Leo. He was having a heart attack and I didn't call for help—not until he was already gone. I refuse to give Mary Margaret her inheritance because when she was a young girl she told about my secret engagement to Daniel. And that led to his death. I _hate_ her." She looks up at Robin. "I'm a vindictive bitch who will step on anyone to get what I want."

He tries to see the woman she's described, but that's not all of who she is. He's witnessed the other side of her, her bald elation when he makes her forget the labels foisted upon her by society, the way she beams when she talks about her cousin's young son and his exploits with Auntie Regina, her dry wit that keeps Robin on his toes—this and so much more. And he doesn't doubt that she hasn't told him the full story about her husband. She's trying to push Robin away. She's failing spectacularly.

He shakes his head. "Regina," he says, "my father is the head of the Irish mafia—the _worldwide_ Irish Mafia. I was reared among murderers and thieves. I'm not afraid of you."

He takes her head in his palms and pours his soul into his kiss. He needs to be as much a part of her as she is inextricably a part of him.

But she breaks away with a strangled cry, shoves him back. "I can't. I can't let you." She sucks in a quaking breath, draws herself up in that imperial posture he usually finds uncommonly alluring. "It's over."

He feels like his ribs are being pulverized with a vise. "Regina—"

"It was fun while it lasted," she speaks over him, "but it's getting boring now."

"You're lying," he accuses in a splintered voice. "You're _lying_!"

She lifts her chin. Her cold, unfeeling gaze is belied by the watery sheen in her eyes. "I'm going to take a shower, and I expect you to be gone before I get out."

He's suffocating in agony. This is a thousand times worse than seeing her with another man. Because she has taken his chance at happiness and _obliterated_ it. "Please—"

"Don't ever contact me again." She locks herself in the bathroom, leaving him to stare after her, shellshocked at having the center of his gravity ripped from him.

The abrupt break-up doesn't fully sink in until weeks later as he sits in Logan airport waiting for his flight to Paris. He managed to make it through finals, managed to graduate with honors despite the protracted detachment that had him going through the motions like a wind-up automaton. He accepted the internship at the Louvre without enthusiasm—because living only miles away from Regina and being utterly barred from her is a hell he never knew existed.

But when the speakers crackle with the call for boarding, he compulsively checks his phone in the mad hope that she's come to her senses in the final hour. There's nothing, though. No text. No missed call. He's never going to see her again.

And that's when he falls apart.

* * *

_Paris, France, Two Years Later _

Robin climbs the steps to his flat, murmuring a friendly salutation to one of the building's other residents as she passes him by. She gives him a flirtatious grin as she often does, asks him when he'll finally let her show him the pleasures of the Parisian nightlife. He waves her off with a laugh.

"Un autre jour, ma chérie," he says as part of the script they've developed over the last year.

She playfully sticks her tongue out at him, tells him to dial her number when he stops being a boring old grand-père trapped in the body of a sexy young Englishman and then skips down the stairs. He watches her with a smile. She's in her early twenties, but she's so _young_. He won't think of how it was his perception became skewed. He won't allow himself to wonder if this is how he appeared to Regina, more child than adult. (The sewn-together fragments of his demolished heart still whisper her name, betraying his resolute belief that he's moved on. He hasn't. He can't.)

He drops his mail on the small table just inside his flat, and he rests his forehead against the door as he closes it. The adrenaline rush from examining _The Birth of Venus_—recently on loan from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence for the Botticelli exhibit—has worn off, replaced by exhaustion. It's the first painting that he's been given to authenticate without supervision, and he spent hours combing every millimeter, scrutinizing each swath of pigment, the texture left by the brush against canvas. He's feeling a tad cross-eyed at the moment. He won't be working on any of his pieces tonight.

He straightens, rifles through the small stack of envelopes he brought inside with him. There's one from Marian—a wedding invitation. He glances at the photograph of the cheerful lovers without a twinge of remorse. From Marian's recent phone call, he learned that her fiancé was a classmate of hers, another graphic designer, and an entirely ordinary practicing catholic with no ties to the criminal underground. Exactly the sort of man she deserves. Robin is glad that she found her storybook ending—even if he'll never have his.

There's a letter from Boston—from the Museum of Fine Arts. He doesn't know why he applied for the assistant in-house expert position there. He tells himself it's because his internship is almost up at the Louvre, and he's sent his resume to several museums around the world. But he didn't have to apply to that one. He leaves the letter unopened with the rest of the mail. If they offered him the job, it's a decision that he's not ready to make yet. If they didn't, well, he's not ready to have that decision made for him.

The floorboards creak under his shoes as he crosses the short foyer into the salon and clicks on a nearby lamp.

He's not alone.

The air in his lungs turns gelatinous, unbreathable, as he stares at his unexpected guest. It's _her_. She who held his future in her delicate hands and tossed it aside. She stands between the sofa and coffee table, gaze trained on _Les noces de Pierrette_ hanging on the wall. Her hair is longer, just past her shoulders, but she is otherwise unchanged. As stunning as ever. His fluttering heart keeps time with the footfalls that draw him toward her, and he's tempted to reach out to her, to test her solidity.

"Regina?" he questions with a measure of awe.

She glances at him. "I told your landlady that I was your sister," she says, giving him a fleeting smirk. "I don't think she believed me, but she let me in anyway."

"She's terribly trusting," he replies. A hundred questions dance on the tip of his tongue, and he can't bring himself to verbalize any of them. Because he's afraid that she'll flee again. (Because he's afraid to discover the reason for his prodigal lover's return if not to bridge the rift between them.)

She turns back to the painting. "Is this the real one?"

He swallows thickly. Is this why she came? "Yes," he answers honestly.

"Why didn't you sell it?" she asks, sounding inordinately clinical about something she once held dear. "It's worth a lot of money."

"It's priceless to me." She raises a brow at him, and he explains, "Because you loved it."

Her expression softens, and he has to tramp down the sudden swell of hope burning in his chest. "You're a thief, then."

He nods. "And a forger—and a soon-to-be accredited art expert."

"Clever," she says, and she's almost smiling. "But not a mobster, I take it."

"No," he agrees, daring to take a step closer to her. "I prefer white collar crimes, much to my father's eternal shame."

"Is that why you wooed me? Should I be checking the rest of my art?" The questions are casual, but earnestness is written in the corners of her eyes, in the tension in her brow. She wants to know if what they shared was real. That hope pooling like liquid fire in the hollow behind his sternum is becoming impossible to smother.

"That's the only one I stole." He inches toward her again. "Although, I can't say the same for the board members of your company."

She smiles then—_his_ smile—and his love surges anew as though it was only yesterday they were together. "You didn't."

"Oh, I most certainly did." He drags his tongue over his bottom lip. "Though I doubt any of them will know the difference. I'm quite an exceptional forger."

She rolls her eyes. "Exceptionally modest too, I see."

This bizarre conversation is driving him to the brink. He's toe to toe with her now, her breath fanning over his mouth. "Regina," he murmurs, "why have you come?"

"I gave Mary Margaret her inheritance," she says as if that's somehow an answer. He supposes it might be—that she's just told him that she's now worthy of him.

He laughs at the absurdity of it, but she cuts him off with a kiss more scorching than he recalls. And then he is yanking her against him as if he can meld with her if he holds her closely enough, tightly enough. The curve of her is familiar and new at once, and _dammit_, she'd better not run away again. He won't survive it.

"Come home, Robin," she whispers when they break apart. That may be the only "I love you" he gets from her, at least for now. He'll take it.

He grins, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.

"To you, always."

* * *

**A/N:** One more installment! XD Thank you for reading! Reviews are better than chocolate and tied with tacos.


	4. Coda

**A/N:** This is the final piece to the story.

* * *

**CODA**

* * *

David paces as he waits, fingers curling and uncurling with bilious anticipation. The others will be here in a half hour, the old gang from Harvard gathering to welcome home one of their own from his two year sojourn overseas—though David now wonders if Robin had really been part of the group. He wonders if he ever knew the young man he once considered his best friend at all.

Alkaline churns a sickly bubble in his stomach as he counts the minutes before Robin's early arrival. David invited him over to the house before everyone else under the guise of two friends making up for lost time. In truth, he wants—no, _needs_ to understand what he witnessed last weekend.

He was scouting out romantic venues for an impending proposal to Mary Margaret. The dust had finally settled between her and her evil stepmother—strangely out of the blue—and with only one year left of law school, David decided it was time to give Mary Margaret his mother's ring. The Museum of Fine Arts was on the list of possible locations.

After touring the rest of the facility, he descended to the Art of the Americas wing, fairly certain that this wasn't the place where he would drop to one knee before his college sweetheart. He made a cursory round through the rooms and was heading back to the stairs when he saw _her_. The viper. The Black Widow. She stood before a glass-enclosed display of Central American pottery, hands clasped behind her back, her face the usual mask of haughty consideration. Mary Margaret had been making noises lately about forgiving her, about reconciling with the only family she had left. David wasn't feeling quite so magnanimous, though. Even if Regina had inexplicably waved the proverbial white flag, the woman was still toxic.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, David thought as he backed toward the exit before she could see him. (Not that she would acknowledge him if she did. She had a special way of looking through people she deemed insignificant.)

He froze mid-retreat when another joined her. _Robin_? But he was in Paris. And why was he talking to Regina as if they _knew_ each other, like they were old friends? The smile she gave Robin was disconcerting in its authenticity. David had never seen her so unabashedly vulnerable. Real. _Human_. It was wrong. So _wrong_.

Robin brushed her hair over her shoulder, leaned into her, his fingers gliding down her arm to capture her hand. Her other palm came to rest against his chest as he whispered something against her ear that made her laugh. The exchange was too intimate to mistake as a chance encounter between acquaintances. They were lovers or well on their way to becoming as much. The revelation was further confirmed when Robin pressed his forehead against hers with a grin before taking her mouth in a heated kiss that had the weight of familiarity.

David turned away, feeling as though the earth had suddenly tipped on its axis. No. _No_. The battle over inheritance wasn't enough for Regina? She had to sink her fangs into Mary Margaret's friends now, too? And in such a depraved way. Oh god, Mary Margaret. She was going to be devastated when she learned about this.

The Robin David knew wasn't naïve enough to fall for Regina's counterfeit charms—especially when he easily had the pick of any woman his own age. There had to be an explanation. _There had to be_.

The next day Robin emailed the crew to announce his return to Boston. Among the congratulations for his new job at the MFA, Mary Margaret suggested that they throw a homecoming shindig the following Saturday. David offered to host.

He sucks in a deep breath, gripping the knob as he opens the front door. Robin stands on the other side holding two bottles of wine and a bag from South End, all smiles as if it hasn't been two years since they've laid eyes on each other—as if he's not screwing Mary Margaret's stepmother behind everyone's backs like some twisted version of _The Graduate_. David always detested that critically acclaimed film, more so now for different reasons.

He takes the wine from his friend—is Robin a friend?—as he steps inside. "Welcome back." David is not sure he means it.

Robin gives him a one-armed embrace that David barely manages to return. "Thanks, mate," Robin says in that deceptively solicitous timbre. "I'm glad to be home."

David bites back a sardonic retort as he directs Robin to deposit his sack in the kitchen. "How was Paris?" David asks because that might be the answer to the insanity he saw at the museum. People do crazy things in France, right? Maybe Regina vacationed there and—no, David won't finish that line of reasoning.

Robin sits at the breakfast bar, takes the bottle of beer David offers him with a nod of thanks. "Good," he answers. "Busy with work, but good."

"Yeah?" David pops the cap off of his drink and takes a sip, trying his damnedest to be casual despite the knots tangling in his stomach. "Did you get any sightseeing in?"

Robin shakes his head. "I did that before university."

"Oh, right. You've lived there before." David takes another pull on his beer. He's stalling. Of course he's stalling. Everything is about to change between them. "So, anything new since I last saw you? I mean, besides working at the Louvre."

Robin narrows his eyes, studying David before letting out a soft laugh. "Are you asking if I've met someone?"

David's heart pounds against his ribs. "Have you?"

"Still the romantic, I see."

Not exactly. David cants a brow as he waits for Robin to confess—or to lie.

"I am seeing someone." The truth it is, then.

"Is it serious?" David's question is too earnest, too _interested_, and not nearly happy enough. He's never been very good at keeping his emotions close to the vest, though.

Please say no. Please let this unnatural thing between Robin and Regina be some perverse fling. That he only wanted to add an older woman as a notch in his headboard. _Please_.

Robin frowns at the bottle in his hands. "We might need a few more of these first."

It is serious. "You can't love her," David blurts out. Not _her_. His best friend can't be _in love_ with soul-sucking Regina Mills.

Consternation ripples over Robin's features, chased with a wave of comprehension. "You know, then."

"Yeah, I know." David gives up the pretense of calm acceptance. "I saw the two of you the other day at the museum."

Robin runs a hand over his face. "Not the way I wanted you to find out."

"_Her_? Seriously?" David sets down his bottle, grips the edge of the countertop. "How the hell did that happen? _When_the hell did that happen?"

Robin looks up at him, his expression unreadable. "You probably shouldn't ask questions you don't truly want answers to."

"You know what?" David says, raising his hands. "You're right. I don't care how you got yourself mixed up with her." (He does.) "Just end it before Mary Margaret finds out—because I _do_ care about how betrayed she's going to feel when she discovers one of her closest friends is sleeping with her stepmom."

Robin's lips compress in a thin line as he pushes back from the breakfast bar and rises. "End it?" It's a challenge; one David is more than happy to meet.

"Yes, end it," David says. "You don't pull that kind of backstabbing shit on your friends."

Robin raises his brows. "Wow," he replies. "Very eloquently put. Are there any other unreasonable demands you'd like to make? Which side of the bed I sleep on? The toothpaste I use? If you're going to dictate one aspect of my personal life, you may as well take a stab at the others."

David clenches his teeth. He hates the cold English gentleman persona Robin dons when he's angry. "You do realize that Regina is using you to hurt Mary Margaret, right? Tell me you're not stupid enough to believe that she actually cares about you."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, David," Robin returns in a quiet, icy tone, "but not everything Regina does revolves around your girlfriend. And since you're so keen on full disclosure, you should know that_ I_ pursued _her_. Nearly three years ago."

The world tilts again as David stares at him. This has been going on for _years_? Before graduation? And Robin chased after Regina? But—"Why?"

"For reasons you can't begin to understand—none of which have to do with either you or Mary Margaret." Robin looks as if he might expound further, but he's interrupted by a knock at the front door. He takes a step in the direction of the sound before turning back to David. "We'll get through this soirée tonight, and then we'll part ways—that is, if you're determined that we can't remain friends under these circumstances."

"Just like that? You're really going to choose her over us?" David is incredulous. He imagined that the conversation wouldn't go over too well, but he thought, he _hoped_ he could talk some sense into Robin.

"Ask yourself this, mate," Robin says, "who would you choose if forced to pick between Mary Margaret and myself?" He doesn't give David the opportunity to answer, but instead opens the door and greets the aforementioned woman with a cheerful hug.

David watches the reunion as turmoil snakes through his veins. He never knew his best friend after all.

(Maybe he never knew Regina, either.)

**~FIN~**

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you for coming along this journey with me! Feel free to drop me a line and share your thoughts! XD


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